


Watson/Druitt: Details, Devil, Deep, Hurt, Time

by lferion



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Caning, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Episode Related, M/M, Mortality, One Sentence Ficlet meme, Schoolboys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five drabbles, mostly one sentence each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watson/Druitt: Details, Devil, Deep, Hurt, Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_lanart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lanart/gifts).



**Details**

James had always been a very noticing boy, to the discomfort of his family who would have preferred he not see the sorts of things he did, but it wasn’t until he met John at Winchester (both of them twelve, united in comprehensive torment as New Men persistent in failing to know their place - or rather, refusing to accept that place) that he realized the details he noticed might apply to himself: as when John’s fingers would tighten into fists at a threat to James but not himself, or that James’ own heart would race whenever John smiled just so.  


* * *

 **Devil**

“Whatever it is that is on Fang Rock, killing the lighthouse keepers and frightening the locals cannot possibly be a devil, John, no matter what the local dominie, fishermen or revenue-men might believe,” James said with all the frustration of one for whom such illogical thought was anathema, yet ubiquitous. “It is killing by means of electricity, a purely physical and rationally approachable scientific principle, nothing whatever to do with spirits or religion or any other such nonsense, as Tesla would certainly agree. It may be described as ‘devilish’ or even acknowledged as evil, but it _cannot_ be a devil.”  


* * *

 **Deep**

James bore the traditional ten stout strokes with the apparent fortitude that frightened John and infuriated the administrating prefect, not to mention the supposedly aggrieved (for which read seriously intellectually outclassed) senior-man; it was a response that only made Farlington hit all the harder and add the insult of ‘two for insolence’ to the injury of already bruised flesh, the cane cutting deep welts it would fall to John to tend. Only John would be allowed to see the cost of that stubborn silence, just as he was privileged to know why James was willing to pay it. Provoking man.  


* * *

 **Hurt**

As Colonel Korba taunted James and laid carelessly cruel hands on the machinery, John felt his fingers wanting to curl into punishing fists, just as they had all those years ago at school. He too had been cruel, but not careless, and James would know — did know - that there was a purpose behind the pain, however hurt and angry he was. But the reflexive twitch told him that despite all that had come between them, the death and horror and the chasm of time, there was still a part of John that could hardly bear to see James in pain.  


* * *

 **Time**

In the quiet of Helen’s comfortable library, the almost imperceptible hesitation in the so long unerringly steady clockwork, the fractionally altered note of gear and pump and relay that signaled wear and weary mechanical effort where once had been all precision and effortless, smooth working of the device that maintained his life was a clangor to James’ undimmed perceptions; seeing John (John!) lounging on Helen’s sofa as if he belonged there, James did not know if he hoped or feared that John could hear it too, and if he would understand how little time was left them if he did.  


* * *


End file.
